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I like to call this time of year a “major reality check”. Why? Well it’s the only time in the year that forces me to stop and take note of where I stand in life. During this time my comparative human nature kicks in to gear. I can’t help but compare the person that I am now, to the person that I was a year ago. The comparisons I make can be as simple as comparing my weight, or realising how much I’ve grown – just this year alone. But since I’m a melancholic type of person, I usually analyse the ‘deeper’ changes that I’ve undergone.

For example, I think that I have become more aware of my emotions… My emotional intelligence has gone from an F to a C+. I now have an understanding of why I feel a certain way at a particular moment, even though this newly gained understanding hasn’t altered the way I respond to certain situations – perhaps in a few years. However, I do think that this has made me more mature.

Welcoming a new year can either be depressing or very refreshing. Depressing because you might just realise that you are still at the same place in your life that you were last year. I don’t know, some people might see this as being a good thing. But being a teenager, in this day and age, leads me to seeing only the cons of such a state. I think this is depressing because I believe that as humans we have the deep desire to improve ourselves. For some, depression might come from realising that they have been spending their whole year taking one step forward, and two steps back. Yep, it happens. It’s like the time I got my 3rd term report – my average was lower than my 1st semester’s report. Even though I wouldn’t call it depression, something struck that told me to wake up and press on.

For others the beginning of a new year can be refreshing. It is for me when a year has been ‘good’ to me. That means that I kept more than half of my new year’s resolutions and I achieved most of my goals (at least the important ones). But I think that it all boils down to my happy moments exceeding my sad moments in the course of the year.

Whether the year be good or bad, I’m sure that we can all agree that time flies. It was just the other day that I was celebrating the arrival of the year of doom, and now it’s only a few days before the arrival of 2013. I personally feel that this is yet to be the best year of my life. After all, it marks the last year of my high school career. This is the year that I’ve awaited ever since I was aware of the fact that there was an end to the madness of waking up early(non-stop) 5 days of the week. This was later overshadowed by the realisation that there was still university and then I would have to work for the rest of my life. But now that I’m soooo close, I can’t stop the excitement of the beginning of the end of my high school years.

Perhaps 2013 won’t live up to what I expect of it. Or maybe it will :-) But I guess I’ll know that for sure at about this time, but only a year later. You know when people say that if they had the chance to go back, they wouldn’t changed anything. Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t that type of year for me… There are definitely some things that I would change if I had the chance to go back. But besides the things that I would change ( if I could go back), I would say that 2012 has been rather ‘good’ to me.

Being in high school has taught me a lot of things about life. It has made me understand that it is possible to feel lonely even when there are hundreds of people around you. In the corridors, in class and during breaks, I have learnt some lessons that will help me face any situation head on. But the most important lesson that I will always remember is the fact that you will always need the next person. Maybe not now, but perhaps in the long-run.

Which brings me to say: No man is an island.

In life you need to be with others in order to make your presence on this magnificent earth worthwhile. As long as we live, we have that need within us to belong. We long to be with others. As humans we have an invisible force that bonds us together. That force connects us into one body. It exists between you and I, and between you and the next person.

Immersing yourself in a group of new people is a tricky thing to do. I usually do this with an intention to learn about the next person, but what surprises me is how much I learn about myself in those few moments. I often realise the similarities between myself and the next person, which makes me say the words: ‘We have so much in common.’ But what I don’t realise is that there is a bit of me in everyone, and most probably a bit of you in everyone else.

People will always be around. They will always play a huge role in your life. Some will bring out the best in you, but others will expose your weaknesses. They will make you cry and they will make you wish you were never born. The aim is to surround yourself with people that bring out your strengths. In that way, you have greater control of your weaknesses and your future.

Life is about decisions and the people around you are there to assist you in making them. They determine the person who are and will be. Learn to see the good in others so that it makes it much easier for you to spot the good in you. Afterall, in others you learn to find yourself.